This is my list of initial ideas.

Title

I have come up with several different names for my magazine and these were:

This is music

Music Notes

Noise

Sing
I wanted something that was easy to remember and catchy it

would stick in peoples heads. I think the four of these ideas

achieve this so I made them part of the questionnaire and let

the public vote. These are the results:

The questionnaire showed that the people who voted preferred This is Music as the title of the magazine. 12 people answered this question all together and 9 voted for this title.

Colour Schemes

A colour scheme is very important in any product. It tells the buyer a lot about an item for example something that is bright and colourful might be directed at children where as something that is dark colours is perhaps more adult orientated. For my magazine I will stick to only two or three main colours to prevent the magazine looking too garish. The colour theme that is chosen from the results of my questionnaire will be used for my house style throughout the magazine.

These are the five colour schemes I suggested on my questionnaire. My favourite here is purple and black because these colours are not opposite enough to each other to clash or contrast badly, but stand out from each other and they make the product look sophisticated and professional more so than something with many different clashing colours. My least favourite of the five is green and orange. I like these colours but I think that putting the two together is too much. They are very bright and I think I would need to balance it out with a lot of dark text and photos which would clash I would like to avoid the magazine looking to garish.

The questionnaire showed that the people who voted preferred purple and black as the main colour scheme. 12 people answered this question all together and 9 voted for this colour scheme.

Typefaces

Like colours it is important that I don't use too many different ones. I have decided to stick to 3 different fonts. These will be for the page title, subheadings and text. The following are the ones I will consider using.

Page Title

My favourite of these three fonts is the first one VTKS Revolt, however I think that it is too detailed and will probably be difficult to read so I think I will use a less detailed font like The Birth of a Hero. I have chosen this one over Cafe Lounge 19 because it suits the style of my magazine more because it has the rough eroded style that I like which many magazines of the same genre use. To suit the colour scheme this will probably be written in white or purple with a white border. If this doesn't work I will put it on a backing that makes it stand out.

Subheadings

There is a theme throughout my magazine of crumpled up paper and I think the font that would suit this best would be the Rough Typewriter font because it looks authentic and will add to the character and emphasise the house style of my magazine.

Text

The font I will use for the main text of my magazine will have to be a very simple font for a few reasons. Firstly it will be made quite small so the maximum amount of writing can fit in the selected area so if there was a fancy detailed font it would be impossible to read at such a small size. Secondly, there will be a lot of writing and if the font has a lot of detail and unnecessary patterns it will look too garish and disgusting. So the following are the four ideas I have to choose from:

Courier

Times New Roman

Arial

Georgia

Whilst analysing the NME magazine I noticed the font they used and I liked it however the magazine keep this font secret so I think I will create a similar font to use in my magazine. The font in NME is similar to the Georgia font you see above. If all else fails I will probably use this or Arial.

Photo ideas and inspiration

This is perhaps one of the most famous album covers ever and is very striking because of the contrast of dark and light. The way the light has been positioned has cast shadows in the eye sockets and cheekbones of the Queen band members, creating quite a haunting effect. However even though there is a lot of over exposure to the faces they are still recognisable. I like this idea and I would like to create this effect on the person in the background of my front cover so they stand out but are not as prominent as the main photo which will have more natural light and colours.

This is another album cover which I have taken inspiration from because they have also used the lighting to create shadows to emphasize the features in the bands faces. This style of the staggered faces is the same style I want to achieve in my cover but with more emphasis on the main person. An advert for this album was on the back page of the Kerrang! magazine I analysed and it caught my eye straight away because of the dark and light contrast.

Initial Designs

This is my first initial design for my front page, the elements from this design which I will take to my final design are:

• Magazine title on a background
• Inside stories down side of page
• Bar code in lower left corner
• Pug

This is my second initial design for my front page, the elements from this design which I will take to my final design are:

• MCU of main artist with background person/people
• Main story and/or artist
• Crumpled paper effect corners
• Banner at top of page

This is my first initial design for my contents page, the elements from this design which I will take to my final design are:

• Writing in straight rows not staggered like design 2. Makes numbers easier to rea
• Two sections of writing (regulars + this week)

This is my second initial design for my contents page, the elements from this design which I will take to my final design are:

• Page title at top of page
• Crumpled paper effect (inverted front cover)
• Slanted pictures with shadows

This is my first initial design for my double page spread, the elements from this design which I will take to my final design are:

• Crumpled paper effect at side of page
• Columned writing
• Album Cover
• Band name at top of page

This is my second initial design for my double page spread, the elements from this design which I will take to my final design are:

• Having the photos of everyone medium close up as opposed to full body shots.

This is my analysis of my chosen target audience.

This is Stu Harrison, he is an 18 year old male and he represents the typical group of people that my magazine will be aimed towards. Stewart lives in Bournemouth in an apartment with his two friends, Steve and John and together they formed a band of which he is the guitarist, who perform covers of songs to small audiences in their area. The genre of songs they perform are the same as the genre that my magazine is based on which is indie (alternative) rock, a style performed by bands like Razorlight, Snow Patrol and The Fratellis. He plays a variety of instruments like drums and piano but mainly guitar which he has been learning since the age of 11 however like most unlabelled bands these gigs are not his main source of income. He has a job at Topshop and buys a lot of his clothes from here with his staff discount. The clothes he wears don't really stand out like those of other stereotypes. He usually wears faded blue or grey jeans with his favourite pair of white converse, which are now a dirty brown colour after years of abuse from the elements. He sometimes wears pullovers on top of t-shirts with big pictures or designs on the front but he dislikes cardigans how old they make him look. His favourite band at the moment is Keane and spends a lot of his free time walking along Bournemouth beach listening to their music. He likes to keep up to date with current music by reading magazines like NME and finding out what's new in the world of song and rather than having a TV on all the time in his flat, him and his flatmates usually have the radio on full blast while having a drink with some mates. He says "it sounds better than the TV and you don't have to put up with crappy actors and Big Brother being forced at you all the time." He is quite a sentimental person and still remains close with his family yet still makes time for drinking and partying most weekends when he's not working. His favourite quote is "Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up," by Thomas Edison and reminds himself of this constantly when he's feeling down which helps motivate him to continue following his dream of one day being a successful recording artist.

This is Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

This image shows a common interpretation of Maslow's hierarchy of need. It is often portrayed like this pyramid with the most essential and important needs at the bottom and built up getting smaller with the smallest area at the top which shows the needs for self actualisation. The idea is that, like a pyramid each layer cannot exist without the support of the layer before. So before people can consider purchasing luxuries like magazines, they must achieve a sense of safety, love and belonging to reach the next level of needs. Magazines are categorised between Esteem and Self-Actualization because some people need magazines to feel good about themselves but they are considered a luxury which is not essential to survival.

This is my analysis of two double page spreads.

NME Magazine

This double page spread can be found on page 32 and 33 of NME magazine and is part of the list of Albums of 2010. We know this because of the ‘Albums of 2010’ logo that is situated at the top right corner of the page. We have seen this logo a few times before and the font and circle motif has been used frequently on this page with the band names. The colour scheme for this particular page is black and white which contrasts greatly with the full page photo on the left side of the spread. The vivid oranges and greens stand out and are splashed across the page with the use of a green circle on the ‘H’ for HOLE and a red/deep orange circle for the ‘B’ in Babyshambles. It would seem that the photo was taken to tie in with the logo for the Albums of 2010 because this colour co-ordination seems to happen a lot throughout the following and preceding pages. These are the only colours used on the spread; the rest is in black and white and makes the headings and photos stand out without the need for borders or shadows. Before New Music Express became a magazine it used to be a non glossy newspaper and I think that a sense of nostalgia is gained here with the clever layout of text, headings and subheadings. The first noticeable point is the fact that this page is not slanted or brightly coloured or covered in different shaped boxes full of text. It has a very linear appearance which looks sophisticated and organised. This is a theme that I have noticed throughout this magazine. The way that the writing is arranged in columns which cover the page instantly makes me think of a newspaper, as does the big bold heading which is like a headline of a newspaper. The plain font and bold capital letters stand out and catch the reader’s eye and immediately tell them what this page is about as a headline of a newspaper would do. Below which is a subheading giving more detail about what can be found on the page. I don’t think that these consistent similarities with a newspaper are coincidental. I think that there was an intentional contrast between the new modern bands of 2010 and the evocative style in which this magazine and spread has been laid out. Darker grey boxes indicate separate pieces of text and helps break the page up to stop it looking like one giant mass of words. The layout of the page is easy to follow; the longest piece of text begins on the left page and covers a small section of the picture to show that this is what it the text is corresponding to. At the bottom of the right hand page is a quote from the interview written in larger bold letters and the name of the artist below in a different colour. This has been put here so readers will see it and think, “Oh this interests me I want to read it.” Three pictures have been used on this page, one for each interview. The main interview has the biggest picture which takes up the whole page and is probably the most detailed with props and a background etc. The other two are much smaller and only contain the band members standing next to each other. The Interpol photo is a different shape to the others which might suggest a different style of music; it is also the smallest which probably means this band is the least known out of the three. The sizes of the photo correspond to the popularity of the band and the size and/or detail of the interview. Sometimes it can be easy to distinguish what style of songs the artists have from the photo and the clothes they wear and how the picture looks however in today’s modern society where every different style merges into one and changes to often it is hard to tell. None of the photos seem airbrushed and photoshopped even though they probably are and the posture of all the artists is friendly and relaxed which implies that the interview is more personal and informal. The overall impression I get from this page is that it will be informative and insightful and will go into detail about the artists. It looks organised and sophisticated and would appeal to a market that is genuinely interested in the bands and doesn’t have to be impressed by stunning photos and writing effects etc.

Kerrang! Magazine

I chose to analyse this double page spread in Kerrang! magazine for a few reasons. Firstly this is the interview that was advertised on the front page with the main photo so I decided to see if there were any similarities between this page and the front page. Also, this page has a purple and black colour theme which is the colour scheme I would like to use in my magazine so I was interested to see how it worked inside a magazine and not just on a computer screen. This interview spreads over 5 pages and the pages I have chosen to analyse are in the middle because I thought this page had the most detail whereas the first page is a large picture with the interview title and the last page of the interview covers only one page and the other half of the spread is an advert. I apologize because I said 'page' 11 times in the last paragraph.

On page 24 and 25 of this issue of Kerrang! magazine there is an interview with HIM's front-man, Ville Valo. The two pages are mainly filled with a large photo in the middle and two columns of text on either side of the photo. The colour scheme of the page is very dark. There is a great contrast from the front cover of the magazine which uses bright pink and blue to this page which is predominantly black and white. White writing on a black background makes it stand out and the long columns of writing are occasionally broken up by the starts of new paragraphs where the first two words are written in BOLD, PURPLE CAPITALS. These words don't really tell the reader what the following paragraph will be about but signifies the start of 'a new chapter' of the interview, giving a storybook effect to this double page spread. Not a lot has really been put into this text like quirky text boxes or slanted pictures and writing to draw the reader in so it suggests that this interview will be read by HIM's hardcore fans rather than someone who is just flicking through the magazine in search of something interesting. However, like the interview in NME magazine, a quote from within the text has been written again somewhere on the page and made to stand out by changing the size and colour of the writing. This particular quote has been written in purple to tie in with the colour scheme and the background is HIM's heartagram logo. This quote is one way to draw readers in because they see the quote and want to know more about it like why it was said. There are two styles of photographs on this page. Firstly is the large photo in the middle which is the first thing that catches the readers attention. It is clear and looks like Ville Valo has posed for it, however his eyes don't look at the camera which gives the effect that he is thinking or he doesn't know the camera is there. The other style is the kind that are situated on the far right of the page. These are less clear and some are blurry which suggests they were taken in a hurry or the person in the photo was moving around frantically. This gives the photo and the interview in general a more personal feel as though they are his own private snapshots like on the contents page of NME. Also the arrangement of these photos is similar to that you might find on a photo booth where you go with friends and take photos as a souvenir. Both these styles of photos give the feeling that we are getting a sneak peek of what the life of Ville Valo is like. It almost feels like we are intruding. The photos are black and white, not only to tie in with the colour scheme but also it makes the photos seem old fashioned. This old fashioned, almost reminiscent feel is reinforced by the filigree metalwork on the headboard of the bed and floral patterns on the curtains both of which are similar to Ville's tattoo sleeve, and the fact that he is using paper to write on as opposed to a high-tech computer or laptop. I think they have used this style to show that Ville Valo is an independent person who moves at his own pace and won't follow the crowd and succumb to the temptation of modern society. At the end of the text a small arrow has been used to show the reader that the interview continues on the next page. The overall feel of this page is simplistic and old fashioned.